The bill elaborates that the US Department of Defense is authorized to investigate “potential offensive and defensive cyber applications of blockchain technology and other distributed database technologies”, and comes as part of the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT).

The MGT was developed with the view of improving the US Government’s IT and cybersecurity systems.

The move will see the Department of Defense analyse not only “an assessment of efforts by foreign powers, extremist organizations, and criminal networks to utilize such technologies” as the blockchain, but would further include “an assessment of the use or planned use of such technologies by the Federal Government and critical infrastructure networks.”

The study would be delivered to US Congress within the next six months and may well include input from other federal agencies within the US.

In a statement to CoinDesk, US Senator Rob Portman (Ohio) offered clarity, elaborating that the “Blockchain was clearly one of the technological capabilities that Congress meant for agencies to look at, and what they were trying to do was create dollars with some flexibility to them so that agencies would have their own discretion on what they invest in.”